An Interview with ConnectedYou Leadership: ‘We Keep Our Core Focus on Democratizing IoT Connectivity Worldwide and Go through a Continuous Innovation Cycle that Allows Us to Keep Moving a Step Forward Every Day’

“We have dedicated ourselves to solving the pressing challenges within the IoT industry so you can deliver on your promise of fantastic future proof connected products and solutions.”

Over the past 10 years or so, the promise of an interconnected everything has intrigued us all. Now, the original concept of the internet has broken free of the desktop computer and is busily inserting itself into a vast array of devices, from wearable electronics and home appliances to business machinery.

Companies, governments and other organizations are deploying billions of sensors to connect just about everything you can think of to the Internet of Things (IoT), and they’re intent on automating tasks and capturing as much data as possible to streamline their operations or gain some competitive advantage.

In light of the foregoing, we’re thrilled to present ConnectedYou (CY).

CY is an independent IoT service company offering a unique and unified IoT service to enterprises globally through a single access platform integrated with multiple technology and service providers. The company’s service is based on four pillar approach encompassing Devices, Connectivity, Cloud Services and Value-added Services. It enables an ecosystem that allows enterprises to freely choose services and offers from suppliers, enabling the ability to remotely switch suppliers within the ConnectedYou ecosystem. CY provides enterprises with a future proof orchestration for all their IoT needs keeping future innovation and improvements in mind.

The company was incorporated in 2018 and is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. It has additional office locations in Switzerland and India.

ConnectedYou Leadership spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review.
Below is an excerpt in their words:

‘We Setup ConnectedYou to Truly Democratize Global IoT Connectivity’: Mr. Mittal

We are pioneers in IoT and telecommunications with a strong background in SIM technology and connectivity. Connectivity is one of the key pillars of IoT projects and we noticed that the new SIM technologies like eSIMs have been monopolized in a manner that only large enterprises with deep pockets can get the true value of this innovation. We wanted to make this innovation available to startups and SMEs who could not invest millions of dollars. Programmable connectivity in IoT is a challenge still to be conquered and will remain a challenge for many. We setup ConnectedYou to truly democratize global IoT connectivity creating a level playing field for small and large companies.

We are a fairly young company, we started a year ago and until now have been contracted to deliver over seven million connections. We started with a global offering from day one, but now in coming 12 months, we plan to have a local presence in Europe, China, India, Brazil, North America to bring this innovation and value to be adopted by everyone.

‘We’re in a Stage Where the Promise of Words is Turning into Real Action’: Mr. Kuoppala

The journey to take our customers through prototyping, testing, piloting and commercializing has been full of learnings for us. We were contracted by our first client to deliver five million connections in the next four to five years, and we started with testing and piloting 1000 devices with them. Initially, the client liked our promise but was not sure if he could trust us on delivering it, because what we were offering was unheard for them. Now we are in a stage where the promise of words is turning into real action and we expect to start shipping commercial deliveries within the next two to three months and scale the volume from there.

‘We Don’t Compete With the Operators but Add Value to their Business Operations’: Mr. Ambadipudi

The biggest challenge always was to work closely with telecom operators because it’s a slow and painful process and for us to scale globally with the service. We managed to create a model which was not as a competitor but as a marketplace giving operators additional channel to serve the small and medium-size customers with an eSIM service which otherwise would not be possible for them.

So, it’s a partnership model where we don’t compete with the operators but add value to their business operations. This was the trickiest bit to innovate in a way where the strongest challenge and threat becomes your natural partner and supporter.

‘We Keep Orchestrating the New Technologies that Emerge On a Future Proof Service Platform’: Mr. Mittal

Since ConnectedYou is a digital marketplace for connectivity services it is hard for us to be obsolete. Technologies change from 2G, 3G, 4G and now 5G but the service we offer is not affected and we keep orchestrating the new technologies that emerge on a future proof service platform. Keeping that model is key to our core development.

‘We Keep Our Core Focus on Democratizing IoT Connectivity Worldwide’: Mr. Kuoppala

It’s been a while when we saw technology lacking to deliver the business value in the market. In our view business strategy comes first and technology should be used in alignment to deliver that value, not the other way around.

We keep our core focus on democratizing IoT connectivity worldwide and go through a continuous innovation cycle that allows us to keep moving a step forward every day. This way we keep our eyes on the vision and the mission and create a focused approach and innovation cycle to achieve it – that has helped us immensely.

‘We Play in the Space of Being Greatly Useful’: Mr. Ambadipudi

We see a lot of innovation out there and some are absolutely mind-boggling that we could have never thought about, but when we look closer there is ‘The Cool’ and ‘The Useful’ and then there is ‘The Disruptive’. We play in the space of being greatly ‘Useful’ to the customers whilst being ‘Disruptive’ enough to change the industry status quo.

We are delivering strong value to a customer segment around the world, a value which as of today without ConnectedYou is impossible to get for them.

‘We’re Working on some Groundbreaking Service Launches, Currently’: Mr. Kuoppala

Currently, we are delivering services on cellular connectivity, but we also plan to integrate and orchestrate LPWA, mesh, satellite and other communications technologies and networks as a one-stop shop digital marketplace for IoT connectivity. Keep following us for some groundbreaking service launches in future!

‘We Plan To Create a Ripple Effect’: Mr. Ambadipudi

Firstly, we want to ensure more and more devices are using eSIMs with our service platform because connectivity is the only element in the IoT value chain that is not remotely programmable today. By making this programmable, we future-proof the devices and ensure they stay in use for longer periods. Secondly, by moving to eSIMs we want to remove plastics usage for plugin SIMs in millions of IoT devices. This is our direct impact and we want to make a substantial difference with this in the future.

Thirdly, we see there is a lot of innovation happening with large companies when it comes to sustainability-related solutions, but what we have seen from smaller companies and startups is even better. Challenge is that innovation from small companies does not spread fast and far enough; we want to help support those initiatives through the innovation centers we will setup and bring those solutions to a larger scale through our partnering government’s support and initiatives especially in emerging markets. This way we plan to create a ripple effect in helping those solutions to bring value to larger segments around the world, but also create employment and growth at grass root level in emerging markets supported by those governments.

Leadership | ConnectedYou

Parag Mittal: Parag Mittal, Co-founder, is the Chief Executive Officer of ConnectedYou.

Velipekka Kuoppala: Velipekka Kuoppala, Co-founder, is the Chief Business Officer of ConnectedYou.

Arun Shankar Ambadipudi: Arun Shankar Ambadipudi, Co-founder, is the Chief Operations Officer of ConnectedYou.

John Anthony Vamvadelis: John Anthony Vamvadelis of the Chief Technology Officer of ConnectedYou.

“Now we are in a stage where the promise of words is turning into real action and we expect to start shipping commercial deliveries within the next two to three months and scale the volume from there.”